Truth About Blood
by Roy-Raventide
Summary: Post CoHF. The Dark War is over, and the Clave is in desperate need of Shadowhunters. So they visit Maryse Lightwood's mundane brother: Max Trueblood and lay claim to his children, Liam and Eva. Forward six years and it's 2013; follow their story as they battle the oncoming threat of rebelling Downworlders and a demon or twenty.
1. Prologue

**Monroe, Louisiana 2008**

Liam Trueblood was eleven years old the day the Clave apprehended him and his sister. The weather was warm, as it usually was during July, and his father was barbecuing just for the three of them excluding any of his clients or friends from work.

Eva was bouncing around the backyard as usual, sprinting from end to the other with no apparent reason. Ignorance truly was bliss. Liam was never blissfully ignorant. He was always thinking about something, how things worked, how things were structured together. Unlike his sister, Liam knew of his heritage and everything that came along with it. His father, Max Trueblood, never trusted him with anything but that information strictly.

"Race me Liam!" cried Eva as she stopped at the wooden fence. "Ready…set…GO!"

Even without the use of Marks, Eva was incredibly quick and agile. She moved like a blur, blond hair whirling in the wind like a whip of sunlight. No matter what sort of head start Liam had, the small blond child always left him in the dust. Which was exactly why Eva laughed loudly and exclaimed her victory like she did every other time they raced.

"I need to stop letting you win," Liam laughed with her. His sister had the contagious laughter that made everyone around her—even a total stranger—laugh alongside her.

"Yeah, sure," replied Eva.

"I'm going to go inside and get some juice, do you want some?"

"Apple!"

Liam nodded on his way through the sliding door noting the smell of burning meat as he did. If it was one thing Max Trueblood absolutely loathed it was burned or overcooked food. It was bad enough when someone else burned it, but how could he _let _his own food burn?

Something was wrong. Obviously.

"The Clave is in need—"

"I don't care about a single thing the _Clave _needs," Liam heard the snappy retort from his father. Oh no, he got really bad when he was angry. He peered his head from the corner he hid behind and caught a glimpse of a lean woman with the same black hair and blue eyes as his father. She looked familiar for some reason, Liam couldn't put his finger on it.

"Maryse," spoke a dark-skinned man standing behind the woman, Maryse. "We need to apprehend the children now."

"Give me a moment, Kadir," she replied, moving her sharp gaze to Liam's eyes, and her own eyes softened. "Hello."

Max turned and sighed upon seeing his son overhearing his conversation. Liam, with his head hung as if in shame, tip-toed over beside his father as Maryse bent down on one knee. She placed a finger under his chin and brought his gaze to hers. "What's your name?" She asked.

"L-Liam," he mumbled, still shyly looking at the ground. The familiarity was getting stronger and he felt like he could see a memory reflect in Maryse's eyes.

"How old are you?"

"Twelve."

Maryse smiled, then stood again. "I'm sorry Max, but we have to take him and—"

"Liam? Where'd you go—and where's my apple juice?" pouted Eva as she entered the small hallway, and the situation that Liam knew was going to take a sharp turn quick.

"Are you going to take us to Idris?" Liam mumbled.

"You told them about the Shadow World?" demanded Maryse.

"Not Evie, just Liam, Evie's too young to learn about that," Max answered. "If you're going to take them, then take me with them. I'd rather die than watch my two children enter the life I left behind."

"You are no longer a Shadowhunter," Kadir bluntly stated. "Therefore, we cannot take you with us."

After that, Liam spaced out of the conversation. It didn't matter what Max said, threatened or did; because in the end, both he and Eva would be going with Maryse and Kadir to be trained as real Shadowhunters.

**Alicante, Idris 2010**

Liam drew back the bowstring, placing it against the corner of his mouth, which was scarred from so many times of a bow's retaliation or his loosened grip. But after two years, he felt he had came a long way. Besides, during the majority of his training he was being trained by his two older cousins: Alec and Isabelle Lightwood.

"Fire," Alec ordered, but Liam didn't need the direction to do so. The arrow had already soared through the training room, a square room the size of a cafeteria, with three of its walls made of magically warded glass. A loud _THUD! _echoed as the arrowhead lodged itself in between the nine and the bullseye.

"Almost there," encouraged Alec as he moved to retrieve the projectile. As he did so, Magnus Bane, Alec's husband and the High Warlock of Brooklyn, entered the training room.

"I see you're still training the Nephilim boy," he commented. Sunlight made his sparkled button-up glitter as he walked to his husband. He then jabbed a finger in Liam's direction. "_You _better not end up becoming a wayward Shadowhunter whose problems I must magically fix—pun intended. Lord, if there is one, knows I've dealt with too many in my time."

Alec chuckled, kissing Magnus quickly on the lips before asking, "Where are the kids?"

"Clary and Simon are watching them," since their marriage, the couple had adopted two warlock children and one Shadowhunter boy: Lilliana, Ragnor and Tobias. Not only that, they had started the Downworlder organization, the Praetor Veneficus, which aided warlocks in their becoming of magic-users. Especially those unwelcome to their mundane parents.

As they conversed with each other, Liam sat down on a bench nearby and twisted tightly on the arrowheads and ran his fingers up and down the bowstring. Alec approached the boy and knelt before him. "Hey, I want to give you something," he stood again and walked over to a metal trunk in the corner of the training room. It was narrow enough to hold a bow. Alec flipped open the locks, revealing a recurve bow, the same bow that belonged to him. "This is my bow," he stated.

"I know," Liam replied. "I've seen it before."

Alec took his bow out of the trunk and handed it to Liam. "I'm giving it to you."

"What? I can't take your bow, Alec."

"Yes, you can," the oldest Lightwood placed his bow in Liam's hand. The bow that had killed the Greater Demon Abaddon, saved Consul Penhallow's life and killed the faerie warrior Meliorn. And not it suddenly belonged to Liam.

"Just take the bow," Magnus called out.

He took Alec's bow in his hands. "Alexandros," he said, "That is its name. Alexander in Latin. After the one who used it first."

Eva Trueblood walked through Angel Square in Alicante alongside her cousin, Isabelle Lightwood. Izzy decided it would be good to let Eva decide her own weapon. Every Shadowhunter had their own preference for weapons, whether it be long-ranged or short-ranged, shortsword or longsword.

"How are you with bows?" asked Isabelle as they entered the weapons shop, Diana's Arrow.

"Terrible," Eva answered. "Bows are more Liam's thing than mine."

"What about a spear?"

Eva made a face of disapproval and walked along the aisles of oak shelves that held a variety of weapons. She had heard from Izzy's friend, Clary, that this was the same place she had received her own weapon: A shortsword by the name of Heosphoros.

After what seemed to be hours of searching—at least, that's what it always felt like when Eva went shopping with Isabelle—she finally discovered a blade with a spiral pattern of leaves on both sides. Eva ran her finger down the leaf pattern and she knew that this was the one.

"Eva, that's a faery sword," Isabelle informed the girl. Since the Clave's sanctions against the Fair Folk, all of their weapons had been apprehended and either destroyed or given to Shadowhunters who claimed them. And since the fey were now a disrespected culture among the Nephilim, hardly anyone claimed the weapons or bought them from weapon stores.

"I know," Eva, being half-fey like her brother, replied absently and picked the blade from the shelf. "I want this one."

"Its name is Grass Blade," spoke Kale Blackwood, the new owner of Diana's Arrow since Diana left to become the new tutor at the Los Angeles Institute. "Due to the leaf pattern along the blade."

"We'll take it," Eva beamed.


	2. Chapter 1: The Silver Bite

**New Orleans, Louisiana 2013**

A bronze bell rang throughout the noisy Downworld restaurant. Liam Trueblood lowered his hood as he entered and scanned the crowd, catching the eyes of some lycanthropes from Levi's pack, some vampires and even a faery or two. There were no hostile expressions exchanged as the Shadowhunter slid into a seat.

Downworlders and Shadowhunters were relatively more peaceful in New Orleans than any other part of the world. There was rarely any crimes involving Downworlders.

"What can I get for you, Liam?" asked Theodore Town. He tapped his silver fingernails against the oak bar. His warlock mark was the reason the Silver Bite had its name.

"Nothing," he replied. "The High Warlock of New Orleans requested a meeting with me." Liam habitually chewed on the inside of his cheeks as he waited, looking both ways for the High Warlock.

Finally, the bronze bell rang again just as the Silver Bite began emptying out. A tall young man entered, wearing a gray T-shirt that had a rainbow on it, the bottom was tied up baring a sliver of pale skin, bright red trousers with purple suspenders and a black fedora. This was Cristov Hood, the High Warlock of New Orleans.

"You said seven o'clock," Liam noted, sighing exasperatedly.

"I know," replied Cristov, speaking with his native Irish dialect. "Sorry, but I was with a client."

"Why go to you when they can just go to regular psychic fraud?" Liam teased and placed a crumpled up slip of paper on the bar. "You said that you had information of an upcoming Downworld riot?" Liam glued his eyes to the warlock's fedora. "Where did you get that fedora, and where can I get one?"

Cristov removed the black fedora revealing a head of messy dark blond hair. His eyes flashed a bright shade of violet—Cristov's warlock marks were his eyes that acted like a mood ring and his pointed ears—and he replied with, "I conjured it up just yesterday. You must be gone in the head if you think I'd give this to you."

"I was hoping," Liam admitted sheepishly. "You could just conjure up another one, right?"

"I could but—we're getting off topic! I didn't specifically mean a "riot" per say, but something of the sort. I've heard it from the vampires, Stacia's clan, that some were planning to feed off the humans." Cristov fished a smartphone out of his back pocket and placed it between them. The screen flickered to life and displayed a conversation between himself and two people by the name of Caroline White and Ian Martin. "Ian, my vampire friend, said that some vampires from Stacia's clan are planning to feed during tomorrow's festival."

Liam frowned. Stacia Honors was usually a very coordinated vampire clan leader, and she was cruel when it came to the breaking of the Accords. He recalled once when she forced one of her sires to ingest holy water and he perished where he stood.

"Stacia would never allow that," he stated.

"I know," Cristov tapped his index finger on his forehead. "Something's going on. And I intend to find out." He snapped his fingers, weaving orange sparks between his fingers and a mug of coffee appeared on the bar. "That is all. You may leave now. Unless you wish to find out where I found this fedora?"

Liam moved off the seat. "I'll pass. Let me know when you've found something."

Elliot Raventide lounged in an armchair in the library with a demonology book in his lap. Though his knowledge on demons was so vast it was practically nonexistent, Elliot needed something to pass the time other than training. He couldn't see how his _parabatai _did it with hours and hours spent on perfecting his already perfect accuracy.

"Hello," Liam entered the library. "Rereading that demonology textbook again?" The _parabatai _rune peeked out of his collar as he moved to sit on the leather couch.

"Well, what else can I do?" Elliot sat up and pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose.

"Play _Angry Birds_," it was all about technology nowadays, with smartphones and tablets and any other devices mundanes came up with. "Or you could go out, like mundanes, with that werewolf girl—what's her name?—Lexi."

"Levi doesn't allow his pack to date Shadowhunters," he replied, his golden eyes alight.

"It's sexier when it's secret," spoke Avena Everbloom as she leaped down from the second floor level. Dark green eyes stared straight through Liam's two-colored gaze, as though she was familiar with the half-fey with one violet eye and one dark blue eye. "Oh yes, I know about Eli's little Downworlder romance."

"How did she find out?" Liam demanded, his eyes still trained on Avena. She was a new ward to the Institute, and very beautiful. She was a head shorter than he was, with a lithe figure and brilliant jade eyes that almost glowed, platinum blond hair tumbled down her shoulders ending in the middle of her back, and pearly white skin that faintly reminded Liam of that of the complexion of a faery.

"She may or may not have caught us together," confessed Elliot sheepishly.

"Wait—by together do you mean 'together'?" He frowned.

"_Together_."

"I caught the wolf chick and Elliot in the sack," stated Avena bluntly.

"Oh, that is—when did you two—"

"Can we we please stop, I have been trying to erase that memory since I saw it," Avena closed her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose. Her eyes snapped open when there was a shrill scream.

The three Shadowhunters quickly left the library and found Victor Merryweather—the current caretaker for the Institute—clutching his daughter to his body. Like a cage to a canary. Melinda was moaning incoherent phrases and her Shadowhunter gear shone with fresh blood. Victor was murmuring to his daughter, things like "it's going to be okay" and "I'll take care of you". But no one was paying any attention to his words. Six pairs of eyes were staring at the large bleeding gash in her side. It gleamed like metal to sunlight.

"Is that…silver?" whispered Elliot, but everyone heard him.


End file.
